


The unspoken wounds (The first time John see Sherlock's scars)

by Lightofonesoul



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Sherlock scars, With happy ending, angsty, season 4, sherlock bbc - Freeform, the first time John see the Sherlock's scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:20:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8158706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightofonesoul/pseuds/Lightofonesoul
Summary: "The consulting detective feels this, warned this.A thing wraps his stomach, twist his bowel..and John wants to go more bit closer on Sherlock, but he can't, he's like stuck to the floor, so he remains there unmoving, and looks at the signs. Scars and burns, some of the burns at older or the other, and another on the way to healing, it's there, on Sherlock's back"





	

**Author's Note:**

> I write this to prompt from @Sherlockchallenge "fist time"  
> English is not my first language, sorry :/  
> but thanks to an amazing girl ♥ ImpossibleElement the language it's better. She helped me with the correction and now it's so much better :)  
> Thanks to everyone reading this ♥

 

 i've created this gif, here in my blog <http://lightofonesoul.tumblr.com/post/150002979357/disperataly-unspoken-gif-of-john-from-here> 

 

 

“Take off your shirt.” John has an authoritative and strong tone, a tone impossible to replicate, so Sherlock sighs. And there, sitting on the kitchen chair, he does it. It’s evening and only the lighting above the table illuminates the two. Around them is dark, and the consulting detective fears this.

He feels and anticipates John’s anger, like chills on his skin, he almost winces unbuttoning the shirt. John is behind him, preparing a medical kit with cotton swabs and disinfectant. The doctor forces himself to be professional and calm, despite the anger wrapping around him. It’s hard to breathe, and the air around him is heavy, he glances at Sherlock impatiently, and sees him slowly unbuttoning his shirt and hesitating. John doesn’t understand this, but then the garment slips off the detective’s back at the moment that John has the medical objects in his hands. Then he understands.

A thing wraps itself around his stomach, twists his bowel; and only for his doctor’s cold blood can he keep the medical objects in his hands and not let them fall.

John wants to get a bit closer to Sherlock, but he can’t. He’s stuck  to the floor, so he remains there unmoving, and looks at the signs. Scars and burns. On Sherlock’s back. Some of the burns are older and others are on the way to healing. They are there, looking at John almost challenging, and reminding him he was not there in that occasion, as with the new bullet. Only a graze, but it hit Sherlock on the right hip and John wasn’t there. At least thanks to his good sense -and Mycroft’s- John is in the flat now. Because he did not know where Sherlock had gone and Mycroft just called him and said he had to come back there. He sent a car for John, but when the doctor tried to have other information on where Sherlock had gone, it was futile. The only thing John deduces is the connection with Mary, because she played with fire again... and Sherlock is gone. So he waited for Sherlock’s return to the flat. The doctor doesn’t have an idea where he went, because the consulting detective did not think about including him.

He chose to exclude John, again.

At that point, John’s anger level is high, and he inhales sharply.

“John.” Sherlock has a soft tone, a guilty one; because he obviously understands what’s in the doctor’s mind. John sighs and stands in front of Sherlock, but he doesn’t look at him. There are other little burns on Sherlock’s chest, but John averts his sight from them. He doesn’t say anything, he knows where Sherlock received these, and he also knows there’s nothing he can do about that. It hurts to think that some of these burns will become scars on his perfect chest, but now John can’t do anything.

Sherlock has excluded him even in that.

John sighs and focuses his attention on the detective’s fresh wound, with a tender and calm hand.

Sherlock wants to talk, he wants to say something but understands that it’s not the time. Both of their breaths are heavy and irregular, the silence is absolute and only the clock is ticking from the living room.

“Why?” Suddenly John makes a question to break the silence. He tries to keep a calm tone, while he slowly runs the swab over the wound, and he asks himself what that question means: whether the new wound or the old one.

Sherlock looks at him before answering.

“I had to do it, it was necessary I went alone. You know that.”

John smiles tersely, while he bandages the wound.

“Don’t you think, in that big brain of yours, that she’s my wife, so I should be involved?”

“That’s the reason I went alone.”

John looks at him. Sherlock can read, in the blue wells of his eyes, the anger, disappointment, impotence and sadness that drown John, and Sherlock feels a knot in his throat.

“And then? What would you have done? Maybe convince her not to escape, help her? God, Sherlock, she tried to shoot you again!”

John feels enraged with Mary. With that woman who escaped someone really evil, someone whom not even her with her assassin's skill could take down, and so Mary married another one for protection.

Because that’s all John was to her: a means to an end.

So, at the end she escapes, she and her lies, she and her false pregnancy and John just lets her go. Because he was tired of forgiving her. He knew he stopped loving her after what she did, and he’s just tired. So when Mary prepared herself to escape, he did not object, he doesn’t want anything more to do with her, but Sherlock kept insisting.

A pinch of irritation stings John, because Sherlock won’t give up with her, despite the fact that she tried to kill him! And he decided to go to Mary alone, tried to convince her to come back. John’s fist shook at the helplessness of Sherlock risking his life, yet again. The only important person in this world for John. It’s frustrating that Sherlock did this alone, without saying a word to him.

“However, she missed, because she was too busy concentrating in escaping from the police, I called before I went to see her... it’s nothing serious, John.” Sherlock tries to calm John, but it had the opposite result, because he sees the words shake the doctor to his core. Sherlock looks at the much repressed anger in his eyes.

“God, Sherlock! You and your fixation to be cleverer than everyone else. Look at you! Look at these wounds, you know what they say to me, hum?”

The doctor’s finger points at the newest wound, and the detective gulps.

“John, plea-”

“No! This time you won’t silence me, Sherlock! Because, damn! I’m tired, do you get this?- John laughs tersely- Tell me why you did this? And when will you stop keeping me out of the loop?”

“You did it before! You fell from that damned roof, you chose to do that. You chose to be a hero; to come back with what? Some wounds to show?” John sighs so heavily, he doesn’t want to stop, he can’t stop. Because he has so many unspoken words, and many tears he has swallowed from years. Sherlock doesn’t look at him, and this snaps John out of his rant.

“I believed that was the one and only time, I convinced myself you wouldn’t do it again. Instead look at you! Wounds, more wounds...again. Because Sherlock Holmes works only with his massive intellect, and nobody can compete with that!”

“Stop John, please stop.” Sherlock doesn’t have a hard tone, but rather a pleading one, and this makes John stop. It takes his breath away when he sees the face of the other man. He’s sad and his beautiful green-blue eyes glint... are those tears? God, did John make him cry?

John made him cry?

No, it’s impossible, because the Sherlock he knows never cried for him, the Sherlock he knows would’ve probably silenced him with indifference. But this man in front of John, his miraculous man after The Fall, is the new Sherlock.

And this new Sherlock cries for him.

“I did... it needs a simple deduction to know why I did this, for God’s sake, John.” He has a distant tone, but the hurting is in the glint of his eyes, emotion...so much emotion that John doesn’t want to see, so he doesn’t say anything. He’s unsure of what to do, because he is afraid that if he makes a move, something will break, like John knows his heart is.

In that moment, John Watson doesn’t know what to do, and it makes him put on his barrier.

“I know, Sherlock. I’m not stupid, but I never asked you to do that.” With a closed fist John says this and glances elsewhere. “And you don’t understand, not yet.” He adds in an angry whisper.

“What is it, then? What should I understand?” The consulting detective looks at him because he wants to know! He wants to hear him say this, to understand if what he sees now is correct. To understand if John’s dilated pupils -with anger and a veil of worry- hide something. And if on his face, Sherlock is reading correctly this “something”...

John looks at him and finds Sherlock looking back, with attention. So they look at each other for many minutes. Something inside John is so heavy and so hard, he wants to scream the words that, many times, he has almost said. The words he has hidden from Sherlock’s accurate gaze.

The words suffocated inside of him.

But he doesn't say anything, John opens his mouth to speak but no sound comes out, so he closes his mouth, and swallows.

Sherlock sighs, he glances elsewhere. More silent minutes pass between them, like small thorns biting them both.

“You’re a genius, try to understand by yourself.” The Captain Watson inside him takes control, so he doesn’t reply what Sherlock asks.

And Sherlock looks pained at the floor, something burns his insides. It hurst more than his wounds, which he no longer feels.

John closes his eyes, breathing. He wants to get out, he must get out of there, because he knows he’s wrong. He feels something crack between them, and John was the one who broke it.

So without a word from himself or Sherlock, John goes out of 221 of Baker Street.

 

John calls a cab. On the sidewalk while he is waiting, he thinks about those words, the words that John really wanted to say:

_I love you, git! I want to be important for you, just like you’re to me... important like I was before._

_Do you remember, Sherlock? Remember when you asked my opinion about everything? Remember how I used to explain to you_ that cufflinks _are a sign of gratitude? Do you remember all the laughs in the London streets, after we’d solved a case? I want that again, Sherlock; and please, I beg you not to leave me behind again, because I want to stay by your side,_ in _every occasion, I’m here if you want me, Sherlock._

And for a moment, only an instant, John gives a bright glance at the flat’s window. He was hoping to see Sherlock there, but obviously he isn’t... so John sighs before entering the cab.

 

Sherlock closes his eyes, and the tears he held back fall on his cheeks. It’s like a bite, and he feels the discussion on his skin, he feels the gap between them.

So with a sigh, Sherlock stands up, and with slow steps goes to the window of the sitting room. He looks sadly at the street, and sees the London cab go away, with John inside it.

Sherlock sees him go away.

“You are important to me.” He whispers to the glass of the window. To John.

* * *

 

 

The night is very dark, but the light of the moon in the sky and the lamppost make the street visible. It’s late, 2:35 a.m. but it’s the best time to go to Baker Street, isn’t it?

John has not slept, wrapped in the dust created between Sherlock and him, like a vine on his stomach. So he’s here.

John hesitates for a minute on the sidewalk, with a key in his hand. A slight tremor wraps him; and he looks at the window. The light is on, so Sherlock must be awake, he thought.

With a sigh and a shaking left hand, he steps closer to the door. He opens it slowly, because he fears he will interrupt the calm he senses inside if he does a lot of noise. Very slowly he climbs the stairs, careful not to crack them.

John sighs before opening the door to 221B Baker Street. It’s dark, but one little light lets John see a bit. Lying in the sofa, in apparent sleep, there is Sherlock.

John didn’t think he would find him asleep, and that surprised him a bit. The light that John has seen is coming from a little lamp on the table, and it reflects beautifully unto Sherlock’s face. He’s lying to the right, so John can see him perfectly. He sees he’s not slept well, because he has a worried face and is strongly clutching something. John gets a bit closer and his heart beats fast when he sees what it is: his jacket, the one he left here as he quickly went out furious.

John tightens the bottle of medicine he’s got in his hands. He has many emotions inside him, and he just holds them. It’s an analgesic, which is another reason why the doctor is there, because the wound is probably hurting Sherlock, and John can’t stand that. So he places the medicine there, a bit closer to the consulting detective. It’s there if he needs it, just like John wants to be. As he bents closer to Sherlock to puts the medication, he sees something.

Something that heightens his protectiveness of Sherlock.

So John stands up, goes to his armchair, takes the blanket resting on it and puts it on Sherlock.

John looks at him and sees with satisfaction, that the chills which traveled through the detective’s skin have stopped. John is captivated for some minutes while looking at him again: he sees how beautiful he is when he’s sleeping and the worries on his face go away a little. John sweeps his gaze over Sherlock’s face and thinks.

His Sherlock... he’s done those wound to himself and to John, but he’s the only cure for them. That man is there, sleeping and clutching John’s jacket like he needs it to sleep well, and it makes John’s anger go away. The dust between them apparently just fades and makes space for the complete love John feels for him. So John smiles a bit, leaning over Sherlock and looks at his lips. After, he caresses the consulting detective’s curly hair and steps back from him.

John looks at him again, at his figure on the sofa and his curly hair resting on the armrest, before he leaves the flat.

And meanwhile, a little smile appears on Sherlock’s lips.


End file.
